Returns
by JMS6
Summary: The worst thing wasn't that he had died. The worst thing was that he had taken John with him. Post-Reichenbach fic. Includes suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, drug use and severe angst, hopefully. Rated M to be safe.
1. Letters

Chapter One

The worst thing wasn't that he had died. The worst thing was that he had taken John with him.

It had been easy enough to find a drug dealer. It only took a few nights of hanging around streets that Lestrade had mentioned were 'infested' to come into contact with one. John still didn't know his last name, but he gave him the drugs and he didn't ask any questions. Cocaine was only a distraction from his 'mental trauma and depression', as his counsellor put it, so it wasn't that bad of an idea, really, and it wasn't as though John had begun aiming to _die_ or something.

It wasn't as though he wouldn't end aiming to die, either.

Before Sherlock Holmes, his life had been a slow, dragging one, filled with solitude and resignation. John had only ever been stagnant before. Sherlock had changed that and cleared the water clogging his mind.

Now, after only five months of his little habit (Pathetic, really...), John was giving in, with the door locked on 221B Baker Street. Imagine if Mrs Hudson found him... after. There was no Sherlock now and there was no real reason to be there anymore, so why should he? It wasn't giving up – it was more like knowing when to stop.

Oddly enough, John had been absolutely fine until about two months of doggedly trailing to the gravestone. It was then that people had begun to notice that he was alright and leave him alone again. Finally, the visitors and mourners were gone. Mike Stamford had moved away to teach another lot of pupils. Lestrade was busy constantly and even Mrs Hudson wasn't worried about him anymore. It was easy to have a decent, pleasant conversation with a person, but it wasn't easy to be alone and have to deal with the real issues he faced. People were mere distractions, like the drugs.

Slowly, John entered the needle into his arm. It wasn't strange to him anymore, this sensation, and there were track marks around the needle. Obviously, this would always be Sherlock, Sherlock's habit and Sherlock's flaw, yet somehow that made it even better to John. He was killing himself with Sherlock's methods. He did, as Sherlock had known well all along, know his methods, anyway.

As expected, the rush came upon John fairly quickly and he settled back in his armchair, adjusting the union jack pillow that his laptop was balanced on, before posting a last post to his blog. This wasn't a sad event. This was a man attempting to be happy.

_**Title: Goodbye.**_

_Readers,_

_I haven't been on this blog anywhere near as often lately, and I'm sure you all know why. Unfortunately, the death of Sherlock Holmes has affected me greatly, and I'm sure you can understand the difficulty I've been having adjusting to my everyday life again. To be honest, life was nowhere near 'everyday' with Sherlock; this blog is the proof._

_I'm also sure you can understand my reasons for preferring death to life at this moment in time._

_I don't know any of my readers, and so I hope that you won't be too upset or offended by this, because that's not what I want. I want to die now because there are no reasons to stay anymore. Not that my life isn't fine – I'm not poor or starving, and I've never been particularly unlucky in any way. I'm very average. This is purely because of the man I believe killed Sherlock, James Moriarty. _

_I have a few last messages, and as I know they'll be read very soon, I'm making them public._

_Sally/Anderson – You know what I think of you two, as I stated it very clearly as you stood by and watched Sherlock being wheeled into a morgue. Don't blame yourselves though. I would love to tell you it's your entire fault, but it's not. You can't help being prejudiced and wanting to be methodical. You do work in a police station. You were merely contributing factors, I'm afraid._

_Greg – Again, this is not your fault. I just don't see the point of staying alive when I'm like this. I've loved the time we've had together and I wish it could have been longer, but it wasn't and so this is what I've chosen. I wish I could have known you better, too. Keep working hard and don't do anything too stupid (says the man committing suicide)._

_Mrs Hudson – You will be one of the people I miss up in Heaven – or Hell, depending on what really happens. You were indispensable and a huge comfort when Sherlock was being, as per usual, a bastard. After I die, please be careful who you let 221B out to and make sure that you don't let the new owners repaper the walls. A rather strange combination, as you've commented on before, but also very memorable. I don't want people to forget him. _

_Molly – You liked him too, however cold he was, and so I know you'll understand this. I know you've been upset for the past few months too, although maybe not quite like this. You're a lovely girl, and I hope you manage to get over him. Don't follow my lead. I was never a good captain anyway._

_Mike – I hope you're having more fun than you were here! God know I wasn't a very good companion after the Event. _

_Mycroft – I'm guessing you'll see this somehow, but please don't try and bring me back from the dead. I am the closest link you have left to your brother, but that doesn't mean I can stay like that. It sounds clichéd, but it's truthful. I've snapped, or, more accurately, shattered. How poetic of me. Thanks for all the help you gave me and Sherlock. Also, tell Anthea that she'll need glasses soon what with all the texting. Does she have contacts? She must do._

_Finally, and I'm sorry about this one, but it had to be done, a quick note to Sherlock himself. _

_Sherlock: Did I ever mention what an annoying dick you are? This is ridiculous, what you've driven me too. Actually, now I come to think of it, I would have done this anyway had I note met you, so scrap that. This is how I was before you met me, slightly amplified but still acutely painful. You're dead, and as most people have commented, we follow each other everywhere. I never really worked that out. You followed me when Irene asked to see me when she was 'dead', but most of it was me running around with you. Does that make me a puppy dog or something, or does it make you a... what, a magnet? This is getting cheesier by the minute, so I should probably stop it. In the most amiable way possible, I love you. It sounded less strange in my head, so all the other people reading this, shut up. Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. Is there a 221B Baker Street in the afterlife? I hope so, because that's why I'm doing this. To stop it all. Either way, I suppose I'll be seeing you soon. Either that or I'll at least die thinking that._

_This got dragged out and I didn't mean it to, but oh well. I'm dying, so I can afford to be slightly sentimental. _

_My will is already made, as I'm sure a few select people already know, so everything legal is sorted. _

_Also, I would like to be buried with the skull. Maybe I could talk to it when I was bored. What am I going on about? I sound like an Ancient Egyptian now – didn't they bury themselves with pets and things? _

_To conclude, I'm sorry to the readers that they have no influence over me now, and I'm sorry to everyone I'm leaving behind. It's what I want and I hope you'll respect that._

_John H Watson_

John had typed the post before he had injected himself with the drug, so it was only a matter of waiting for himself to start slipping away before he clicked the 'post' button.

All the usual feelings that came when he took the drug were there, and his mind blurred, but there was still a sense of boredom throughout it all and there was nothing John could do about that until the dark really began to set in.

As he died, John gazed up at the ceiling in contented amusement. When had the world ever looked like this before?

* * *

**A/N -** Oh dear, I appear to be writing even more angst than usual, probably due to my increasingly depressed mood. I'm 14 and I suffer from depression, so no wonder I'm good at getting into this kind of fic. I hope you enjoyed this one, and yes, it's going to be continued. I didn't mean it to be more than one chapter, but... this always happens with me :) Please review and tell me what you think!

Jess


	2. Help

Chapter 2

Just as John was staring at the ceiling, a worker in the government was staring at his blog. He had only to read the first few sentences before he picked up the phone and press the one number he had never had to call before.

"Sir?" he asked as soon as someone picked up. "It's John Watson. He's attempted suicide in 221B Baker Street."

"Thank you."

Mycroft Holmes hung up immediately and sent a message to the hospital and to a few relatives and friends of John's before ordering his car and rushing down the stairs to bound into it.

Across London, Greg Lestrade, Molly Hooper, Mike Stamford and Harry Watson were all staring at the messages that they had just received in shock. Mrs Hudson was sobbing as she tried to force open the door to the flat. Mycroft was reading the blog post quickly and his frown was deepening by the second.

_To: _Sherlock H

_Message: _Have you seen John's blog recently? Whether or not, do **not** go to see him. MH

Sherlock was also in a cab when he got the text, although he was travelling in the opposite direction. Of course he hadn't seen the text – what did Mycroft think he was doing, blogging‽ He checked the blog though. Why was Mycroft texting when he could phone this time? _Speed?_ If so, this was important. Sherlock opened the blog quickly and found himself staring at John Watson's last words.

He barely read the first paragraph before looking up sharply.

"Excuse me, but can we go back?" he asked, irritated at trying to have to keep up this façade of a nervous man while his friend was...

Sherlock erased the thought. Mycroft already knew, so Mycroft could save him.

"What?" asked the driver. "All the way back again?" Sherlock rolled his eyes in the darkness of the back seat.

"I'm so sorry, but I've just been told there's been a family incident," Sherlock said, because this man would be the type to say that.

"Oh, okay," replied the driver dumbly before doing an illegal U-turn in the middle of the deserted main road. _Terrible driving, but good timing for it_, thought Sherlock as they began to speed back down the road.

_To: _Mycroft

_Message: _I'm on my way. SH

Greg would have been in yet another cab, but he was having to support Molly, who had just recovered from fainting. Luckily, the delay was not huge, as she had been unconscious for only three seconds.

"I'm sorry!" Molly gasped when she woke up. Greg shook his head.

"Not a problem," he replied. "Let's go."

As quickly as they could, the two made their way down the stairs in the hospital and hailed a taxi. There was an ambulance not far in front of them.

Harry was still looking at her phone in horror as she scrolled through the blog post. He hadn't left her a last message, even, but he _would_ have. He was her brother! Did this mean it wasn't real? It couldn't be. Either way, she wasn't going to find out the hard way – through someone else – so she jumped into her car, shaking off the buzz in her head from the glasses of wine she had just drunk and ignoring her shaking hands.

Outside 221B, Mrs Hudson was being comforted by a nurse as two men, including Greg Lestrade, attempted to break down the door and Molly Hooper stood by looking pale. It didn't take long to do, so when the medical team ran inside, John's pulse was still there, however faint, and he was still breathing, even if it was incredibly shallowly.

"Give him-" Molly stuttered. "Give him oxygen and try to prevent him from vomiting." That was the dominant concern right now, until she found the way he had killed himself.

_Oh._

There was a thin syringe on the floor next to where John had been sitting. She looked at it in shock until Greg burst in.

"Cocaine overdose, then," he said, before chivvying her down the stairs and into the street. A woman with long, mousy, unruly hair had just pulled up and was running towards him now.

"Excuse me, I'm John's sister," she cried as she came to stand, frantic and rushed, before him. He nodded. She must be as worried about John as the rest of them, so she must have seen the post too.

"Greg Lestrade," he said. "You can ride in the back." The woman ran past him again and hopped quickly into the back of the ambulance to see her brother. Lestrade and Molly clambered back into the taxi behind it awkwardly as they all set off.

"The hospital, then?" asked the driver.

"Yeah, thanks." Lestrade said, glancing back at Molly, who now had silent tears streaming down her face. "Hey, Molly, don't worry," he told her, grabbing her hands, which were folded tightly in her lap. "He'll be fine." Lestrade only hoped he was telling her the truth. She was the doctor, not him.

When Mycroft got the second text, he phoned Sherlock.

"Sherlock, you _can't,_" he protested, knowing that it was useless. There was a loud sigh from the other end of the line before Sherlock replied.

"I have to go." He replied firmly. For once, he didn't sound defensive or condescending.

"I understand your need to see him, but you cannot go!" Mycroft replied heatedly. Somehow, Sherlock's honesty was making him even more irritated.

"Mycroft," Sherlock said quietly. "He could die." Mycroft huffed out a breath before attempting to regain his composure.

"That is, I think, the general point of suicide." He responded coolly before realising how harsh it was. Sherlock made a sound of pain and shock that obviously was paired with a wince.

"So I have to go!" Sherlock cried after a few moments. "If he dies, I want to be there so I'll get to see him again and he'll get to see me."

"Ah, yes; but he might not die," said Mycroft. "There is still a large chance that he will survive."

"I know," Sherlock replied, patronising once more. "But if he doesn't die, then he'll think it was a hallucination and it won't matter."

"I do realise this, Sherlock, but you simply cannot walk into a building covered by CCTV cameras and crawling with people _unrecognised_." Mycroft insisted. He was nearing the hospital now.

"Then I'll be in disguise and you can, if necessary, withhold everyone else until it's decided whether he'll live or die." Sherlock reasoned. Mycroft had to admit that it wasn't too bad of an idea. Sherlock had always been a master of disguise. He thought the proposal over for a moment and he heard Sherlock's breathing increase slightly.

"What disguise?" he asked, still not entirely sure.

"Brown wig, glasses, his style of clothes. I'll say I'm a colleague." Sherlock replied immediately.

"What excuse should I give the nurses to eject the other visitors? I told Gregory Lestrade, Molly Hooper, Harry Watson and Mike Stamford. Whether your landlady will be there is uncertain as of now." Mycroft continued as they neared the street of the hospital.

"Anything that works will do. I could be a... I could be his boyfriend, for all I care!" Sherlock said in frustration. "I don't know, just say something."

"Alright." Mycroft agreed at last. "Hurry, then."

"Of course." Sherlock replied bluntly before ending the call.

"John," Harry sobbed as she saw her brother, prone on his stretcher in the ambulance. "_John..."_

The tourniquet he had used whilst administering the cocaine was still on his arm, and as she went to sit next to him a nurse unstrapped it, allowing the blood to flow back into his arm.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" asked the nurse fumblingly. His name tag said 'Williams', and she smiled weakly.

"Harry Watson – his sister." Harry gestured to her brother. The nurse nodded sympathetically.

"I'm sorry," he said, before being rushed away to look at some kind of breathing equipment with another nurse.

Sherlock's cab drove frustratingly slow, even considering that the driver was pushing the speed limit. Ever since the conversation, the driver had been shooting Sherlock odd glances intermittently, which was probably because the quiet, nervous man he had let into the cab was gone. Replacing him, in his full, tense form, was Sherlock Holmes, tapping his feet and drumming out The Flight of The Bumblebee manically and three times too fast on his leg.

"You okay?" the driver finally asked. Sherlock snorted.

"My best friend just tried to kill himself." He stated. The driver, unsure as to whether the man was being patronising or clear, merely said 'oh' in way of response. Luckily, the following silence was filled as Sherlock's phone rang again.

"What is it?" he hissed as he answered.

"Sherlock, this is a very delicate matter." Replied Mycroft. "John's health is severely fragile and, to put this clearly, I am not sure you will arrive in time. Please do not get your own hopes too high."

"I'm preparing for the worst, in fact," Sherlock lied smoothly, pushing his hopes down painfully. "Please make everyone involved work harder." He said, hanging up for the second time.

Sherlock arrived at Mycroft's home two minutes later, letting the cab leave with a tip too large to be entirely reasonable, and immediately began to throw on the wig he had in mind, glasses and clothes.

"Doctor John Hamish Watson," he muttered to himself as he rushed down the stairs, saying the name for the first time in months. "Sentiment is _debilitating_, you imbecile..."

* * *

**A/N – **Wow – that chapter took longer to write than expected. The last one took about half an hour, but this one took almost all day (with huge intervals for Sherlock-watching and relationship-analysing. And eating.), but that's probably because I wasn't really in the right mood for it. Also, I noticed a few stupid spelling mistakes in the last chapter, like 'too' when I should have written 'to' and 'note' when I should have written 'not'. I was tired, depressed and not concentrating, I swear! Normally I'm a huge stickler for grammar, but that was terrible, so I'm sorry.

As usual, thanks for reading and please review!

Jess


End file.
